Jack's Present
by Nathalorial
Summary: Jack brings Jamie a present during Christmas Break, and Jamie asks Jack how he got his blue hoodie. Too choked up to talk about it, Jack has Sandy show Jamie the story through his dreams. Written for a contest on devianArt. Rise of the Guardians does not belong to me.


Jack Frost flew through the cool air of Pennsylvania, a thick brown bundle held under his arms, ice crystals decorating the edges as it reacted to his cold touch. It was the first day of winter, and the parcel he carried was a gift for someone very close to him.

Looking below and seeing the town he was heading to, Jack dove down and sped through the streets of Burgess, heading towards the Bennett household.

Flying up to the window of Jamie's bedroom, the teen looked in and found the boy sitting at his desk, undoubtedly doing Christmas break homework early so he could enjoy the rest of his free time. Jack tapped the end of his staff to the window, frosting it over and sending a tendril of ice through a crack in the wood, down the wall, across the floor, and up the side of the desk to curl on the desktop around the paper, immediately attracting Jamie's attention.

"Jack!" he exclaimed, dropping his pencil and running to unlock the window. Jack floated in, followed by a few snowflakes, and plopped onto the end of the bed, closing the window with the end of his staff. He hooked the crook of the staff around Jamie's waist and pulled the kid towards him, enveloping the boy in a frozen bear-hug.

"Hey Jamie, how's it going?" he asked, letting go before ice could start forming in Jamie's hair. Not that it would look bad... maybe he'll bleach the kids hair for April Fool's Day next year. Or maybe next week.

"I'm doing okay, just a bit grumpy my teachers gave me homework on Christmas break. Hey, what's the frozen brown thing?" Jamie may be in middle school now, but Jack could tell he still had the attention span of a goldfish now and then. He smiled and moved the bundle from under his arm to sit on his lap.

"This, Jamie, is an early Christmas present from me to you." He told him, looking down and watching how the ice still clung to the edges of it. Jamie's face lit up, as Christmas literally did come early for him just now. He was about to reach for the bundle, but then stopped and looked at Jack with a bit of worry.

"Are you sure Jack? Won't North get angry that I'm opening a present before Christmas morning?" he asked. Jack waved his hand, dismissing the thought.

"Nah, this sort of thing happens with other kids all over the world, and North knows how exciting his holiday is, he understands when a kid is so excited and opens a present early, especially if the giver says it's okay. Besides, this isn't even wrapped, it's just folded up."

The grin returned to Jamie's face, and he reached for the brown bundle once more. Picking it up, it fell out of the folds, revealing itself to be a double-layered leather cape. There was no hood, and putting it on Jamie had a look of awe on his face. It went down to about his knees as he was now, and Jamie could tell this was something that he wouldn't have to worry about growing out of, size-wise. The ice crystals that were on the edges were melting off now, but the water did not soak through the warm leather.

"Do you like it?" Jack asked, a little worried the boy would think it too old-fashioned. Jamie nodded his head excitedly.

"Of course I do! Jack, this is awesome! Where did you get it?"

"It used to be mine. I wore that before I got this blue hoodie."

"Really? How old is it?"

"A little over 300 years."

Jamie's eyes widened again. Jack laughed at his expression. "Don't worry Jamie, it's sturdy, I've taken good care of it, it won't fall apart any time soon."

Still, Jamie took the cape off and hung it on the back of his bedroom door, before turning around and coming back to the bed, sitting down cross-legged and facing Jack.

"Why did you start wearing a hoodie, anyways?" He asked. Jack raised an eyebrow, he hadn't expected that question, and didn't really want to talk about it.

"Well, I guess it's because the hoodie was the first gift I got after I became Jack Frost."

"Oh? Who gave it to you?" Jamie really was interested, and Jack couldn't say no to the puppy eyes that Jamie suddenly turned on him. Why the puppy eyes?

"Sandy did. Hey, listen, if you want the story on my hoodie, why don't you ask him? I know he can't speak, but Sandy can show you a dream tonight of it through his eyes."

"Really?! That would be awesome! But, how can I ask him? Usually as soon as Sandy reaches Burgess, I don't get a chance to say anything because the sand knocks me out immediately."

Jack thought for a moment, then came up with a solution.

"I see your point. How about this then. You sit back at your desk and finish your homework today, and I'll go find Sandy and let him know, then all you have to do tonight is go to bed like normal, and Sandy will do the rest. Then tomorrow I'll come back and we can have some fun in the snow. Sound good to you?"

Jamie's face fell a little, he had really wanted to hang out with Jack more today, but he nodded his head, wanting to see Sandy's story. Jack ruffled his hair and went to the window, opening it and flying out, leaving a flurry of snowflakes behind him once more. Jamie trudged over to his desk and sat back down, then promptly made sure his desk and his forehead were introduced as good friends. He hated his math class.

That night, Jamie lay in bed and watched the window, then smiled and closed his eyes as golden sand floated through the glass panes. And Jamie dreamed.

OoOoOoOoO

At first, Jamie could see Jack in his dream, then it froze, and everything sped up and moved oddly, as thought time was traveling backwards. Jamie felt like he was watching a movie that was being rewound. It continued to speed up though, until he couldn't make out anything but colors.

Then it all stopped.

Jamie could see Sandy beside him, doing his routine in sending the sand out at night, thinking _"Okay, I need to pay attention to this town, one of their own died recently and I need to make sure they can sleep tonight."_ Jamie then realized the thoughts in his head were not his own, but Sandy's thoughts.

_"Okay, Sandy is showing me this from his point of view."_ He realized. He also realized he knew things automatically about this period in time, because Sandy knew them. Right now they were floating over what Burgess used to look like back in 1712. December 21st, to be exact. With that idea in mind, he let the dream flow as a memory would.

Sandy floated down near the wooden village, sending his sand in nearly all the windows. One particular strand appeared to give him trouble, but after wrangling with it a bit he managed to put the poor girl on the receiving end into a calm sleep. A bit of movement on one of the rooftops caught his attention.

A boy, about 17 by the look of him, with bright white hair and brown tattered pants and a brown cloak suddenly jumped up in front of Sandy. He carried a shepherd's crook in one hand and had ice ringing the edge of his cloak.

He was curious, and looked a little unsteady in his flight, with wind blowing every which way, but managed to circle around Sandy, eyeing him as though the little yellow man couldn't see him. The boy poked at the grainy, golden platform Sandy was standing on with his staff, and a part of it froze for an instant. Sandy created an exclamation mark over his head and shooed the boy away, poking at the golden ice and trying to get it to melt. The boy backed up in surprise.

"You can see me? And hey! You just shooed me away, what gives?" he asked, voice both relieved and a bit annoyed. Sandy glanced up at him, having managed to melt the ice, and created a question mark above his head in response.

"Why aren't you answering me? Can you hear me?"

Sandy nodded his head.

"So then why not say something?"

Sandy pointed at his mouth and created an X over his head in the golden sand, then a picture of a child sleeping and then waking up.

_"I hope he understands me, I don't want to speak, I might wake up the children."_ he thought, watching the white-haired boy. The boy in question didn't quite seem to get all of it, but he figured out the little man couldn't speak.

"You are a mute? Okay then. Well, my name is Jack Frost. At least, I think it is, the moon told me so."

He would have continued, but then a draft of wind flowed by, and all air currents stopped, and Jack fell. Sandy created another exclamation mark over his head and floated downwards, watching the kid pick himself up off the ground.

"Sorry, still not used to flying. The wind stops sometimes."

Sandy nodded, and the scene froze. Jamie temporarily became aware again of his own presence, before the dream seemed to fast forward. And he drifted out of self consciousness again and back into Sandy's memories and thoughts.

The year was no longer 1712, but December 19th of 1777, and Sandy had decided to pay a visit to a military camp that was being set up in a valley. Sandy was surprised when he arrived though, as the wind blew horribly, the snow fell incessantly, and the soldiers all looked miserable. He needed to work some of his sleep magic once they set up tents to take shelter in.

And once again, Sandy saw Jack. The winter spirit saw him too, and flew over. He had been around a bit more in the past years since meeting Sandy, and was able to control his powers a bit better now. Only, as he came up to the little man, frozen tears were in his eyes, and Sandy reached out to pull the boy in a hug, with a question mark forming over his spiky hair.

"Sandy, why won't the snow stop? I want to help, I wanted to make them feel better and make the armies stop fighting each other, and it started snowing, but now it won't stop and they are getting sick."

The boy kept going on, his words coming out in a rush. Sandy put a finger to his lips to stop him, and relaxed his shoulders while lowering both hands down, trying to tell the boy to calm down. After a few attempts, Jack wiped the iced jewels away from his eyes and took a few deep breaths. Almost immediately, the snow slowed down and the winds calmed. Sandy smiled at Jack.

_"The boy still has problems controlling his powers when he's upset. This was a bad time for him to come around, someone this innocent should not have to witness this war between the colonies and the British."_ Sandy thought to himself sadly. _"I've already heard some of the other immortals complaining about how volatile he is, but I have not seen anything such as this."_

Jack smiled back at Sandy and thanked him for the help, then flew off again. Sandy looked after him worriedly, but let the child be.

Once again, the scene froze, and time moved forward in yet another blur. It stopped now and then for very brief moments, showing clips of other immortals complaining to Sandy about Jack. The Groundhog often told of how Jack would become a shadow to scare him back into his den to keep winter around for six more weeks. Different spirits of the other seasons, spirits Jamie couldn't name, appeared now and then complaining about Jack messing with their seasons.

Each year that passed, Jack seemed a bit more sad, and sometimes he lashed out at those that complained about him. Other times he avoided them completely.

Then time slowed to a stop again.

It was Easter Sunday in 1868, slightly less than a hundred years later. Sandy was floating over a city in Sweden, sending out his tendrils to gently lull the children to sleep. There was quite a lot of snow on the ground here, which was normal for how far north the country was. Suddenly Jack appeared beside Sandy, floating gently on the wind and looking rather sad.

He still wore the same clothing, the same tattered brown pants, the same white poet-like shirt and brown vest, the same brown cape with ice along the edges.

"I've really done it this time Sandy." he told him, sounding tired. Sandy patted his shoulder and waited for him to go on. Jack smiled sadly and played with one of the sand tendrils that hadn't made its way to a house yet, freezing it and watching it melt.

"I know the other spirits don't like me. They say I'm nothing but a prankster. Yeah, I like to play games, but they all seem so serious, they need to lighten up."

Sandy patted his shoulder again, hoping the boy would get to the point. Jack got the message.

"I wanted to help, to show that I'm not a total screw-up, you know? So I went and found the Easter Bunny..."

Sandy immediately winced, knowing that Jack's personality wouldn't mix well with the hot-tempered rabbit. Jack continued his story.

"I remember someone saying that Easter was about hope, so I wanted to help by putting snow where he was hiding the eggs. The eggs' bright colors look nice on clean snow. But I got too excited, and dumped a snowstorm over half the continent. He was so mad."

Sandy nodded sadly, understanding. He wished someone had told Jack that it wasn't a good idea to mess with another spirit's holiday, that it often causes more harm than good.

Sandy tried to cheer Jack up by creating a round target out of sand and placing it a few meters away, tossing a sand ball at it. Jack's smile eventually became a genuine smile as he chucked snowballs and icicles at the target, improving his aim.

The next memory was only a few days later, of Sandy standing in the Burrow while Bunny ranted on about how he was going to rip the 'little frostbite' a new one when he caught up to him.

Time sped up once more, it was now the day before Christmas Eve of the year 1995. Jack was floating beside Sandy once again, watching how the majority of the dreams children got tonight where of presents they wanted North to bring them. Once again, the spirit of winter looked sad, and Sandy didn't have to try hard to figure out what was bothering the boy.

Jack, in all technicalities, was still a child. But he had no family to spend Christmas with, and Sandy was pretty much the only spirit other than Mim that wasn't angry at Jack on a constant basis. The child's natural talent of annoying those around him seemed to grow with each rejected encounter he had.

Sandy felt bad for Jack, because he had checked North's lists last year, and was horrified to see that Jack topped the Naughty list _every year_ since Sandy first met him back in 1712. That meant that Jack had never received a single present in his entire immortal existence.

Yesterday, Sandy had done something he hoped would improve the boy's mood a bit.

After much looking around, Sandy had found a blue hoodie sweatshirt. It was simple, with a connecting pocket in the front and sewn lines from the edges of the pockets up to the armpits and down the sides of the back in decoration. Sandy was sure the boy would like it. He then went up to North's workshop and raided the wrapping room, finding a white box. He folded the sweatshirt up and placed it in the box, closing the lid and tying it with a blue and silver ribbon.

The yeti's were curious, but too busy to do much but sneak glances at the little man before he floated out and back into his rounds, placing the present within his sand cloud and out of sight, hoping he would run into Jack before Christmas night.

He was lucky tonight. He swirled a strand of sand around Jack to get his attention, and pulled the box out from his sand cloud. Jack's blue eyes widened in surprise. Sandy handed the box to Jack.

Jack held the present gently, afraid it would break, and looked at the tag on it.

_"To Jack,  
from Sanderson Mansnoozie,  
Merry Christmas!"_

Jack looked up at Sandy, tears in his eyes that had not yet frozen. Sandy gestured down to the box, encouraging him to open it.

Jack pulled the ends of the bow and placed the ribbon on Sandy's cloud, then pulled the lid off and looked inside. He reached in and ran his fingers over the blue clothe, ice crystals forming under his fingers.

Jack pulled the sweatshirt out and looked at it, turning it over in his hands and inspecting the sewn design on the sides. Then he held it to his chest and floated over to Sandy, holding him too and crying on his shoulder tears of complete and utter joy. Sandy patted his back in comfort, golden tears coming to his own eyes at the child's happiness.

After a few minutes, Jack pulled back from the hug, wiping frozen droplets off of Sandy's shoulder. He sat down on the golden cloud and untied the bonds on his cape, pulling it off and folding it up. He then pulled the hoodie on over his beige shirt, more ice crystals forming along the edges of it just as they were on his cape.

Jack spread his arms, silently asking if it looked good. Sandy gave him the thumbs up, nodding his head excitedly. Jack smiled once more and in his excitement flew around the golden cloud, snow starting to swirl and fall around them in big, fat and fluffy flakes as he thanked Sandy over and over again.

Here, the memory began to fade out on that scene, and Jamie once again became aware of his own thoughts, separate of the Sandman's. Then the dream ended completely, and Jamie woke up.

Sitting up, Jamie felt something warm run down his cheek, and realized he was crying as well.


End file.
